Why it works: Flour and caraway match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,435 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Drop Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the batter
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add the beaten egg and mix well.
Stir in the sour milk or cream and baking soda until combined.
Add the flavoring and enough flour to make a stiff batter.
Bake
Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a buttered baking sheet.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 10 to 15 minutes.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,435 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, and helps make the batter tender when creamed with sugar.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and, creamed with butter, traps air that lightens the batter.
- Egg
- Binds the batter and adds structure and richness to the cakes.
- Sour milk or cream
- Supplies moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the sour milk or cream to produce gas that makes the cakes rise.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the structure that sets the batter into cakes as it bakes.
The step that matters
Stir in the sour milk or cream and baking soda until combined. The baking soda needs acid from the sour milk or cream to release gas for rising. Mixing only until combined keeps the batter from being overworked, which helps the cakes stay tender.
Swap the caraway
The recipe marks caraway as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, milk, flour):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Carawaythe original
- Jalapenofits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, milk, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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